Now in view of the universal belief then prevalent, that slavery in this country was doomed to short life, and especially that in Maryland and Virginia it would be _speedily_ abolished--must we adopt the monstrous conclusion that those states _designed_ to bind Congress _never_ to terminate it?--that it was the _intent_ of the Ancient Dominion thus to _bind_ the United States by an "implied faith," and that when the national government _accepted_ the cession, she did solemnly thus plight her troth, and that Virginia did then so _understand_ it? Verily, honorable senators must suppose themselves deputed to do our _thinking_ for us as well as our legislation, or rather, that they are themselves absolved from such drudgery by virtue of their office! Another absurdity of this "implied faith" dogma is, that where there was no power to exact an _express_ pledge, there was none to demand an _implied_ one, and where there was no power to give the one, there was none to give the other. We have shown already that Congress could not have accepted the cession with such a condition. To have signed away a part of its constitutional grant of power would have been a _breach_ of the Constitution. The Congress which accepted the cession was competent to pass a resolution pledging itself not to _use all_ the power over the District committed to it by the Constitution. But here its power ended. Its resolution could only bind _itself_. It had no authority to bind a subsequent Congress. Could the members of one Congress say to those of another, because we do not choose to exercise all the authority vested in us by the Constitution, therefore you _shall_ not? This would, have been a prohibition to do what the Constitution gives power to do. Each successive Congress would still have gone to THE CONSTITUTION for its power, brushing away in its course the cobwebs stretched across its path by the officiousness of an impertinent predecessor. Again, the legislatures of Virginia and Maryland, had no power to bind Congress, either by an express or an implied pledge, never to abolish slavery in the District. Those legislatures had no power to bind _themselves_ never to abolish slavery within their own territories--the ceded parts included. Where then would they get power to bind _another_ not to do what they had no power to bind _themselves_ not to do? If a legislature could not in this respect control the successive legislatures of its own State, could it control the successive Congresses of the United States?